The Tyranid Swarms VS Chaotic Artillery: 1850 Battle Report at Dice and Daggers

Lately I have been having a good old sort of all my Warhammer, at the moment I am selling my Tyranids off because I want to focus on my Chaos Marines and I have many many things I need to buy for them to get my list 100% and not all Proxy. I also started bidding on ebay for some Chimera's, which I luckily won the bid to for a nice deal. They will hopefully be getting here within a few days time. However, Bat Rep Time!

Today, I face the Tyranid swarms for the 2nd time in 7th Edition. Luckily, this time there wasn't 6+ Toughness 6, 6 Wound Monstrous Creatures to deal with and 2 Flyrants to pepper me with shots. Also I would like to say that this army is a lot better than my last one, but all that is for a different time.


My army this time is in flux between what it was in my Battle Report against the Space Wolfs and what the complete thing will be. As it stands now it is:

Chaos Space Marines: Crimson Slaughter Detachment With allied Renegades from Imperial Armour 13.

Chaos Sorcerer - Bike, Bale Star, Spell Familiar, Level 3, Warlord

Chaos Sorcerer - Bike, Spell Familiar, Level 3

5 Chaos Marines - Rhino

5 Chaos Marines - Rhino

5 Chaos Spawn - Mark Of Nurgle

5 Chaos Spawn - Mark Of Nurgle

Maul Fiend - Lash Tendrils

Maul Fiend - Lash Tendrils

Chaos Fire Raptor - Incendiary Missiles, Reaper Autocannon Batteries, Maelstrom Raider

Renegades:

Witch

5 Veterans - Chimera W/Militia Training

5 Veterans - Chimera W/Militia Training

4 Field Artillery - 4 Quad Mortars

Agus Defence Line

My opponent used the Tyrant Codex, his army was roughly:

Flyrant With Twin Linked Brain Leech Dakka

3Warriors With Rending Claws and Death Spitters and Barbed Stranglers

3Warriors With Rending Claws and Death Spitters and Barbed Stranglers

20 Termagaunts

20 Hormagaunts

2 Venomthropes

2 Zoanthropes

Exocrine

Brain Leech Dakka Fex in Tyranocite

Brain Leech Dakka Fex in Tyranocite

Pregame:
We rolled Relic for this game mission and Hammer and Anvil deployment. These both set the game to my advantage due to Tyranid units being out in the open and vulnerable to my Artillery and with the mission being for relic, there wasn't much that could pick it up and get far away before I land all my templates on them. Also with them beginning the game far away from me I had more turns to send templates there way. With my army set on being partly static and partly mobile I also have range over the relic with guns and with my Maul Fiends and Spawn.

Psychic Powers: My Divination Sorcerer received Prescience, Foreboding, Perfect Timing and Scriaz Gaze. My Telepathy Sorcerer received Psychic Shriek, Terrify, Fortitude, and Shrouding. My Witch received Warp Flux.

My opponent received The Horror, Warp Blast/Lance,

My Warlord trait was .... Whilst My opponent rolled Synaptic Link from the Tyranid traits allowing him to outflank a single unit in his army.
I Won the roll to choose who deploys and who goes first.

Deployment
My thoughts on my deployment were simple, to cover the entire board in Artillery range so no Nid could hide and cover my deployment zone as much as possible to stop them Tyranocites depositing unwanted Monstrous Creatures up behind me. I decided to deploy all my Artillery on the left of my Deployment Zone, covering all the board but keeping them a few inches away from the edge of my deployment zone. After that I deployed both Chimeras and both rhinos at the back of my deployment

My Artillery and spawn hold the Left

zone in the center, to be able to push forward when needed but also to make landing the Tyranocites harder for my opponent. I then split my spawn and Maulers in to two separate duo's one taking the left flank surrounding my Artillery and the other taking the right covering my tanks. Finally, I attached my Divination sorcerer to the Artillery to allow full access to ignore cover, something I needed this game to counter the Venomthropes and the Telepathy sorcerer to the right hand side unit of spawn.

Whilst my Tanks, Spawn and Fiends hold the Center and Right.

My witch is extremely hard to seem as it is hidden in the ruins above my artillery. Out of sight from even my camera, I hoped my opponent would miss him too. My Raptor once again in reserve, awaiting to be trialed against the Flyrant.







My opponents deployment consisted of a long thin line across his deployment edge. Centering the Exocrine and Zoanthropes hoping to get them in range of their weapons and to cover the Relic. Between them stood a unit of three Warriors, which would be a potential first unit to run for the Relic. Backing them up were the two Venomthropes casting their 6" Shrouding across all the units that were deployed within the army and finally flanking them on either side were a brood of Gaunts and Warriors. My opponent decided to reserve his Flyrant, with the thoughts of my ability to 'snipe' out such a threat early on within the game and he also stipulated that he wanted the jump on my Raptor in the air war. Along with this the brood of Hormagaunts outflanked due to the Warlord trait he had. This gave me cause to worry about leaving my deployment zone early game to grab and secure the objective as I could easily be surrounded by green bugs and if they got into my Artillery, my major firepower unit and my power over the board would be squashed.

A thin line it may seem, but more terrors lurk off the board.

Without further a due, I declared my opponent to go first and that I would not be stealing initiative from him. This is because it gives me the upper hand in the air and the last turn jump on objectives. It also forces my opponent to drop his horrible Fex's early, I move somewhere stupid and end up losing a ground by having to deal with Carnifex's eating my Artillery.

Turn 1

My opponent began his turn by pushing up everything in his Nid battle line towards the center of the board and the main objective placed in between two trees in the center of the board, keeping his units within the shroud bubble of the Venomthropes giving his warriors and the Exocrine a 3+ cover save or better depending on my angle of fire.
The Psychic phase was not very eventful as all of the Tyranid powers were out of range of my units.
The shooting phase consisted of most the Tyranid units running up the field whilst the Tyranocite opened up on my closest Maul Fiend scoring a Penetrating hit, but I rolled well on my Daemon Save and bounced the hit.

I began my turn by shuffling my Rhinos and chimeras into positions where I could react to the Tyranocite drop in the coming turns, I moved my spawn behind my artillery into the ruins close by them, giving them a 3+ cover save thanks to my Warlord Trait. I also shuffled my spawn round to closely support my Maulfiend on the right, whilst the sorcerer detached from the unit and hid behind the twin chimera's creating a AV12 wall across from the nids.
In my Psychic phase I cast up both Prescience and Perfect Timing on my Artillery whilst I activated shrouding on my Telepathy sorcerer. I did forget to activate Gaze to give me re-roles on my reserves next turn, which was unfortunate but I did manage to cast all my power successfully and my opponent failed to halt them.

Artillery carve a hole through the Tyranid Swarm

In my shooting phase I opened up with my Artillery targeting the far right Venomthrope to remove his cover boost from one side of his army. From the scattering I scored 7 hits on the Venom, 8 hits on the Zoanthropes and 8 hits on the Gaunt unit. When the saves were thrown he lost his Venomthrope giving me first blood, a Zoanthrope from his Psyker unit and 7 of the gaunts. My chimera's opened up on the Exocrine but failed to do any damage.


Chaos: 1 - Tyranids: 0


Turn 2

My opponents turn opened with both Tyranocite Fex's coming in and the Flyrant, luckily the Hormagaunts didn't appear this turn as I would have enough to deal with. He dropped both Pods directly in front of my lines, which they did not scatter away from my lines depositing both dakka Fex's a few inches away from me. 

Down they come, with the battle line getting closer

 The way they were placed blocked me from pushing up into the center of the board and taking the relic. I also would have to engage these threats in combat and at range, affording my opponent some breathing space to move in towards the relic and to my board side. His Flyrant flue in taking cover in some ruins out of range of all my weapons, keeping it safe for the next turn. The rest of his forces pushed up the table, breaking free of the surrounding terrain and making their way to the center of the board.

In the psychic phase, my opponent casting catalyst upon the Flyrant and the Exocrine which I threw all my dice against but failed to stop. He also cast up Warp Lance against the forward most Maul Fiend, scoring a hit but failing to penetrate it's hull.

Fex's close to my business

The Tyranids shooting phase opened up with the Dakka fex's firing into my Maul Fiends. Fortunately, with both of them hidden behind cover I only took one hull point of damage. The Tyranocites, forced to shoot at the closest target fired at the Maulfiend (Top left) and the Chimeras (Bottom Right). Unfortunately with their weapon strength being too weak to damage my tanks, my opponent hoped for multiple scatters onto units he could damage, this he achieved with the top left Tryanocite, scoring 4 hits on my Artillery group and killing a crew member. The exocrine joined the barrage of shots and scored several hits on my Artillery crew, attempting to wittle down the numbers and successfully killing another member. His Warriors opened up with their barbed strangler and Death spitters on my Arillery too, luckily unable to kill anymore crew members thanks to the high toughness value and the Agus.

In my turn, my Fire Raptor failed to show up to lend a helping hand against the drop fex's and the Exocrine. My movement began with pushing both maulfiends and spawn units up toward the Carnifex's to hit them in combat. I pushed up my two rhinos to get in range of the Tyranocites to give supporting fire.
In my psychic phase I cast up Prescience and Scriez Gaze from my Divination sorcerer and Shrouding from my Telepathy Sorcerer. I also cast Psychic Shriek upon the left Tyranocite. My opponent rolled 14 on his 3D6 causing the Nidpod 6 Wounds and removing it from the table.

In my Shooting phase, I opened up on the Exocrine with my Artillery, scoring 15 hits against it and taking 2 wounds away from it. I opened up with both my Chimeras and Rhinos into the last remaining Tyranocite taking 2 wounds from it.

In my assault phase, I declared charges on both his Carnifex's with my Maul Fiends to absorb the over watch fire. Both of them made it in and were then followed by the units of Spawn, which rolled on their mutation table, one scoring 2D6 rolls for how many attacks they received whilst the others got a 4+ armour save. Useless. The first combat for me was a unfortunate eye sore as my Maulfiend missed all of its attacks and my spawn rolled low for attacks only taking off a single wound to the Carnifex. I beilieved myself safe as the Fex only had 1 attack to reply with because of the Lasher Tendrils and he had to randomise who he was hitting, unfortunately for me he rolled to hit against my Maulfiend, which he hit, Penetrated and I failed my daemon save, then rolled a 6 on the damage chart resulting in an explosion result. In a single stroke one important combat unit was taken out of the game.
The other side I was a lot more fortunate. My maul fiend hit 3 times and took 3 wounds from the Fex, I believe he must of caught some glimpse of what happens if he missed too much and my spawn rolled 40 attacks dragging the dakka fex down to its knees and taking its last wound. Consolidating away, my Spawn didn't roll very high putting them in range of the Exocrine and the Warriors guns next turn, fortunately my Maulfiend managed to climb back behind the Agus wall.

Chaos: 1 - Tyranids: 0

Turn 3

Well hello unwanted visitors, please go away

As you can see above my opponents turn began with the arrival of his Hormaguants on my flank, he placed them sitting inches away from my Artillery ready to charge them next turn. His Flyrant also moved up the field now in range of most of my units and covered by the remaining Venomthrope for the 5+ cover save. He kept his Exocrine covered by the ruins surrounding it and sat right next to the Relic whilst the three warriors moved in behind to the edge of the relics terrain piece. His warriors on the Exocrines other side continued their push towards my lines and getting line of sight to my spawn.

The Tyranid Psychic phase opened up once again with the Tyrant casting Catalyst upon itself and the Exocrine, luckily throwing all my dice against it again I dispelled it, keeping them extra saves away from my opponent's two most powerful units. He also cast up warp lance once again, this time against my chimera but failed the psychic test to do so, thankfully this turns power did not hit home.

The surviving Spawn are the ones who made it to the Agus

My opponents shooting phase consisted of the Flyrant, the Exocrine and the Warriors opening up on my vulnerable Spawn sat just outside the Agus, downing three of them in a flurry of shots. The Gaunts ran through the ruins they were in, possibly to get into the spawn trading blows with the carnifex and lend some extra hits whilst the second Warriors unit ran onto the Relic.

The combat phase saw the Dakka fex and the spawn tear into each other as my spawn gained poisoned attacks from their mutation and took two wounds from the Carnifex leaving on it last wound, however the carnifex swung back and took two wounds from a Spawn in return bringing one of them down to one wound.

My turn saw the arrival of the Fire Raptor, swooping in behind the Flyrant to attempt to carve it out of the sky or at least force it to jink.

"Target Lock" as the raptor lines up with the Flyrant for a strafing run

I span my Artillery turrets around to face the Hormagaunt brood threatening my rear, accompanied by my Telepathy sorcerer. I pushed my Maulfiend and chimera's up towards the Tyranocite in attempts to finish it off. I kept my unengaged spawn hunkered down behind the agus, they were in good range to charge the Hormagaunts if my artillery failed to finish them, and the position they were in would allow me to assault the Warriors surrounding the relic.
In my Psychic phase I first attempted to cast Psychic shriek upon the Hormagaunt Brood, but my opponent successfully denied my attempt. I then cast up Prescience and Perfect Timing upon my Artillery unit to give the Hormagaunts a hard hit in the shooting phase. My telepathy sorcerer also attempted to use terrify on the Hormagaunts, but due to their feed rules I accidentally gave them Rage instead of an inconvenience.

I began my shooting phase by firing both Autocannon Batteries and the Avenger Bolt Cannon at the Flyrant. My opponent jinked the Flyrant to grant it a 4+ cover against the Bolt Cannon, as it would ignore it's armour save completely. Scoring a 12 out of 15 hits and 8 wounds my opponent only failed one of his armour saves. Fortunately, next turn it would only be hitting me on 6's which is the second best thing to it not being there. Once again I opened up both chimera's and rhinos into the Tyanocite and with there combined fire power brought it down to 2 wounds. Finally I fired into the Hormagaunts with my artillery, scoring over 50 hits and wiping the unit from the board in a single stroke. Last of all I turbo boosted my Telepathy sorcerer behind the cover so that it could not get sniped in the next turns.
In my assault phase I charged my Maulfiend into the Tyranocite, finishing it off with two hits and wounds, my spawn also dragged down the last Dakka Fex, opening up the middle of the board so I could finally push out of my deployment zone and onto the board.

Chaos: 1 - Tyranids: 3

Turn 4

Poised for battle... after many annoying grubs

My opponent began his turn 4 by moving his Flyrant over to the right of the board, taking a sharp corner making the Raptor unable to engage it next turn as it was under the minimum movement of my flyer if it remained in flight mode. The majority of his remaining units held fast in the center of the board around the relic.

In his Psychic phase he cast up Catalyst upon the Exocine and the Flyrant, but I threw all my dice into successfully dispelling it. He also cast Warp lance against my Maulfiend, successfully casting, hitting and causing a glancing hit against it dropping it to it's final hull point.
In his shooting phase he fired both the Exocrine and the Flyrant into my maulfiend attempting to drop it and give him power over the center of the board, unfortunately my Maul Fiend passed the only Daemon save it was required to make leaving it horribly close to my opponents Warriors. His Termagaunts opened up into my now-free spawn, putting two wounds into them and dropping a spawn. On the other side of the field the second unit of warriors fired on my Artillery, but caused no wounds.

I began my turn with dropping my Fire Raptor into Hover mode, allowing me to keep the Tyranids in its sights and have a picking of targets for the shooting phase. I also pushed both spawn units up the field to charge upon both the tyranid warriors on the far left and the gaunts on the right. I pushed all my Chimera's and rhinos forward, to race for the Relic to hold it next turn.

Pushing forward

In my Psychic phase I only cast Prescience on my artillery as no other powers were required this phase. I was either out of range or the power would have no actual effect.
In my shooting phase my Fire Raptor opened up on the Exocrine with 2 Incendiary missiles and the Bolt Cannon, whilst I targeted the last Venomthrope with one Reaper Battery and the last Zoanthrope with the other. I scored several hits and wounds on the exocrine, finally putting it down. The Venomthrope suffered just as well being stripped of both its wounds and the Zoanthrope survived with both wounds intact due to its 3++ invulnerable. My Artillery fired upon the three warriors on the far left, clearing one of them from the board. I also opened up with both Chimeras into the Warriors killing a second with the combined firepower.

The Tyranid dead from this turn, Gaunts not included.

In my assault phase my Maulfiend charged the three Warriors holding the relic, they swung first with their rending claws, but failed to damage the walker. Swinging back the Mauler hit three times and killing all three with it's S10 Power Fists. The spawn on the left charged the lone warrior, taking a wound from over watch and rolling low on the Attack D6, trading 1 wound each this turn with the warrior whilst the four remaining spawn on the right hit the Termagaunts, taking 2 wounds from the over watch but none from the combat, in return the Spawn slayed all but 7 gaunts, rolling 5's on their attack dice and Poisoned attacks on the mutation chart.

Chaos:1 - Tyranids: 0

Turn 5

With only two units left on the field, my opponents fortunes looked bleak. He moved hit Flyrant up towards my artillery staying in flight mode to keep away from my guns and he moved his Zoanthrope up to stand head to head with my Maulfiend.
In his Psychic phase he cast Catalyst upon the Tyrant and the Zoanthrope, which I successfully denied by throwing all my warp charge against it. He then cast up Warp Lance against my Maulfiend,

Squaring off over the objective, I brace myself for the worst.

passing the test but missing the shot, lucky for me as if the Maulfiend died then I would have to tangle with the Zoanthrope over the objective up close with my marines.
In his shooting phase the Flyrant picked out my Telepathy sorcerer, which I forgot about moving into a safer postion. In a true flurry of shots the sorcerer dropped like a stone failing multiple saves and losing me half my warp charge and powers for my next turn.

In his assault phase he surprised me by charging the Maulfiend, although not being able to harm it, the maulfiend failed to drop the Brainy thing, making 2 invulnerable saves. My Spawn finished off the last Warrior, and ran back towards the Agus line and the Spawn engaged with the Gaunts wittled them down to two.

In my turn, I put the Raptor back into flight mode and parked it behind the Flyrant, I also disembarked both units of Chaos Marines, one moved to the relic, claiming it for myself and the other towards the Flyrant. I also moved both Chimeras up to fire upon the Flyrant this turn hoping to drive it to the floor and take its final wounds.
In my Psychic phase I Prescienced the closest Chimera to my Sorcerer, which was denied by my opponent now that our dice had become even.
In the shooting phase I opened up with the Fire Raptor into the Flyrant once again with everything. Fortunately without the 2+ Jink save the flyrant lost all its wounds then and their to the Raptors guns plummeting to the ground.
My opponent called the game there, which was honestly fine with me as I would of probably tabled him in the same turn.

Chaos: 5 - Tyranids: 0

In this game I realised how devastating Quad mortars can be to a toughness based army. I had been able to capitalise on the fact that I could pick and choose my targets from turn 1 and they would be either destroyed entirely or crippled with several losses. Adding in the Sorcerer to the Artillery worked really well this game too, although he had a Bike the durability I have with him to either run him with the spawn or in the artillery as a buff unit really helps this list out a lot.
One thing I brought forward from last game was to keep my sorcerers out of combat, and I managed to do that. I was almost, however, forced into combat by the outflanking Hormagaunts as they threatened my artillery unit and my main power house on the board. Luckily, the hits were true on the guns and I didn't have to, but then that did lead to the sorcerer then getting sniped by the flyrant, which brings me to my next lesson to learn. Put them back into a squad at some point because of sniper shooting.
All in all my opponent played well, with the blocking Fex drops and the Hormagaunts outflanking I had a number of things to deal with throughout the game until I was almost stretched at breaking point. The only thing I said to my opponent what I would have done differently was to start with the Flyrant on the board, he did counter the point by saying I could just blow it off the board straight away, which is true. However, I did say if he had set it up, I would have to pick between killing it and getting the last turn jump. Also if he was "Cheeky" I put it, and set it up on the edge of the board, any shots of mine that scattered would automatically fail and I wouldn't kill his tyrant. If that was in the mix at turn 3 when I was struggling to cope with the multiple threats he would of been able to expose me to far more damage and possibly stop me from pushing turn 4.

If you got this far, thank you for reading! Leave a comment below and I shall be posting more soon!